Plant-wide utility disturbance management in the process industry

In English Utilities, such as steam and cooling water, are often shared between production areas at large-scale sites. A disturbance in the supply of a utility is therefore likely to affect a large part of a site, and cause great loss of revenue. This study focuses on identifying disturbances in utilities and estimating the economical effects of such disturbances. A general method for reducing the loss of revenue due to utility disturbances, the utility disturbance management (UDM) method, is presented. Modeling of the effects of utility disturbances on production is needed to complete all steps of the method. In this paper, a simple on/off modeling approach is suggested to quickly obtain key performance indicators that may be used for decision support for proactive disturbance management. A matrix representation of a site and its utilities is introduced to simplify the computations. The UDM method is applied to an industrial case at Perstorp, Sweden.